An aircraft. To take Cooper far, far away from him.
Chaos had seen red. He’d been moving before he’d known it, sliced through one’s neck, incinerated the other after he’d run, cutting off the man’s terrified scream. He’d raced down to Cooper only to see someweaselthreatening his puppy with deadly human medicine. Cooper had been hurt and scared and—and—
And it’s all okay now, Chaos tried to tell himself before the anger could get away from him and he burned through the hotel room they’d only just found. He had to remember. Remember that he had his puppy safe in his arms. No one was going to part them now.
Cooper lifted his head, peering around the room, the skin of his face creased from where it had been pressing into Chaos’s sweatshirt for so long.
It was nowhere near as nice as the hotel they’d squirreled away in when they’d been hiding from Ivan, but it was private, and it was here, so it would have to do.
“Are we going to bond now?” Cooper asked after he’d made his perusal.
Chaos took a moment so that his words would come out soft and sweet and not in the harsh growl he could feel burning his throat. “After I bathe you. You have blood on you.”Weasel blood.It was all over Cooper’s neck and the back of his lovely tawny hair. “It smells disgusting.”
“I thought you liked the smell of blood.”
“Not on you.” Chaos considered, then amended, “Not unless it’s mine.”
Cooper scrunched his nose. “Gross.”
“Romantic,” Chaos corrected.
Cooper was always getting mixed up about that.
“A shower would be good,” Cooper said, ignoring Chaos’s correction. “I probably smell like flop sweat.”
“Mm,” Chaos agreed. Although, Cooper’ssouldidn’t taste fearful anymore. It hadn’t emitted any fresh terror since Chaos had arrived in that basement doorway, flickering with flames. Even with a syringe of death held at his neck, Cooper had kept faith that Chaos would save him.
Chaos would make sure Cooper never regretted such faith in him. Never ever,ever.
He took Cooper into the bathroom. It was small, just a toilet and a bathtub/shower combination. But that was fine—neither of them was overly large.
Chaos set Cooper down gently on the floor and began removing his human’s clothes. The hooded sweatshirt Cooper was wearing had weasel blood on it, so Chaos incinerated it, then disappeared his own. He turned the knobs on the shower, feeling the water. The shower pressure was good, at least.
“Tell me if it’s too hot.”
Cooper held a hand under the spray, then yelped, jerking it back. “Fuck! It’s scalding.”
It had barely been warm to Chaos. He sparked out a flame before he could help it, annoyed with himself.
Stupid shower.Chaos would burn it down if he didn’t need it to wash off the weasel blood.
Cooper started patting Chaos’s back. “I’m fine. Let me try.” He fiddled with the knobs, waited a moment, and then tested it again, letting out a relieved sigh. “That’s better.”
It was still a stupid shower.
Chaos removed Cooper’s glasses and lifted him over the edge of the tub, then followed him in. He made a note of the temperature while he was in there so he wouldn’t accidentally scald his puppy again.
Cooper gave him a sweet, tired smile, tawny strands plastering to his face under the spray. “Are you going to wash my hair for me, menace?”
“Yes,” Chaos told him, reaching for the hotel’s miniature bottles of cleansing agents.
Cooper eyed him, not yet turning around to let Chaos get at his hair. “Yourhair’s black,” he said after a moment. “And so are your eyes. I can barely see the whites around them.”
“I’m having dark feelings,” Chaos admitted.
“Because I was hurt.”
“Because you were almost taken from me.”
